


The Boy in my Bed

by juniebugg



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Gentle Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Intimacy, Mutual Pining, One Shot, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romantic Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:01:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24124048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juniebugg/pseuds/juniebugg
Summary: Now that the war is over, Katniss and Peeta are allowed to explore their relationship outside the prying eyes of the Capitol.This is my take on how Katniss and Peeta first grow back together and initiate their sexual intimacy after the events of Mockingjay. This story was originally posted on my Tumblr (junie-bugg) and I've since edited the work a bit.
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Comments: 30
Kudos: 258





	The Boy in my Bed

The first night I hunger for more than just his warmth next to me in my bed, he is having a nightmare. He doesn't thrash around and scream like I do. Rather, he tenses. His body is stiff under my hands. At this moment he is so unlike the Peeta I've come to know: soft and gentle. At this moment he is as tensely wound as one of my bow strings before I let an arrow fly. I watch his eyes moving back and forth under his tightly closed lids. They flutter like bird’s wings. He is seeing things I cannot and as I gently stroke his hair, I quietly wonder what they are.

I hold him against me until the nightmare stops and he wakes with a shudder. He doesn't say anything but he does place a warm hand to my face. I do the same to him. I feel his tears under my palm. I do not tell him that the feeling of his large hand on my cheek makes me wonder what it would feel like on my bare hips and stomach. I do not tell him that the sound of his deep breathing next to me makes something between my legs curl in pleasure. Perhaps tonight is not the night to tell him or perhaps I'm too scared to. All I know is that when I wake up, he's gone back to his own house across the green and his side of the bed is cold.

I see his kitchen light on through my window. It's not yet dawn. He left earlier than usual.

He's in my bed more nights than he's in his own, but it's still not enough. I slip on my mother's bathrobe, the one she wore when she lived here, and pad down the stairs. My house is dark and empty. When Prim and my mother were here they would fill the rooms with firelight and soft chatter. Without them, there is nothing. The only time I feel like this house is a home is when Peeta comes to sleep in my bed. We haven't talked much since he planted those primroses in my garden, but he knows me well enough that he doesn't have to ask to come under my covers. If I didn't want him there I could just as easily kick him out.

I clutch Buttercup by his furry underbelly and carry him into the cold morning air. Dew laden grass blades cling to my bare feet as I walk. Buttercup doesn’t hiss in response to his rough treatment. He knows that when I bring him to Peeta's house, he gets food.

The hallway is warm and smells of baking bread when I open the door. Buttercup lets out an agitated meow as I unceremoniously drop him and let him pad his way to the kitchen on his own. Peeta looks up as I enter the room. The shadows under his eyes are blue and his skin looks grey against his blonde curls.

"You look terrible," I say.

"And a good morning to you too." He continues molding dough. I smile slightly when I see that he's making a batch of the cheese buns I love. I wrap my arms around my middle, trying to calm the butterflies that have started to appear whenever he’s around.

"Your nightmares are getting worse."

"If I could stop them I would," he snaps, agitated. There’s acid in his voice. "I know crying isn't what you expect of a bed partner."

"Peeta." There's a hardness in my voice that I mean to soften. The words come out harsher than I want them too. "I'm just worried about you."

"I know, Katniss. I'm sorry." He grips the edge of the table with his flour-covered hands. His knuckles spasm under the force. "I'm just tired."

I hesitate and let the moment close. The kitchen is silent except for the soft roar of the oven and Buttercup's purring. He's playing with a piece of stray string on the floor. Before, this would have been a setting where I wouldn't have dreamed of touching Peeta. But things have changed between us since the games. There's no faking love for cameras that no longer exist. It's just me and him in this warm kitchen. I come up behind him and wrap my arms around his chest. I rest my ear against his back so I can hear his heartbeat. It's steady and strong. I'm reminded of when it stopped during our second games and how I almost lost him forever.

"I want you to move in with me."

He tenses under my arms.

"Are you sure you want that, Katniss?"

"What do you mean?"

"I-" he untangles my arms from around his body, getting flour on my sleeves in the process. A dull pang of hurt leadens my limbs. "I've been having more flashbacks. The shiny memories haven't stopped. Sometimes I'm here and I'm baking or I'm painting or I'm just lying down on the couch and then the next moment I've blacked out and broken something or I've hurt myself."

It's true. I awoke one night to find him muttering under his breath, rocking back and forth on the edge of the bed. He had scratched his palms to shreds with his own nails. The only thing that had calmed him down enough so I could clean his wounds was when I sang him a song. When he finally heard my voice, he seemed to be coming out of a trance. But I'm no better.

Almost every night I wake up in a cold sweat, a scream ripping my throat apart. Some days I muster up the strength to go to the woods and hunt or even go into town to trade. Other days I can't get out of bed. Instead, I just stare at the wall blankly and refuse to eat what Peeta brings me. I can tell he's worried about me just as much as I'm worried about him.

"I’m sure, Peeta."

We hold each other close in the soft glow of the oven.

It doesn't take long for Peeta to move all of his personal belongings into my house. He has a few boxes of clothes that Portia made for him to wear during our victory tour. He has his easel and an assortment of canvases, brushes, and paints. What surprises me is how much baking material he has. I watch him carry heavy sacks of flour, sugar, and salt from his kitchen into mine. His muscular arms ripple in the sun. He has an assortment of cake decorating tools that I've never had the chance to look through. He smiles as I lift frosting tips and cookie cutters from their organized drawers and set them all up in a line on the counter. He has so many. He places his shoes next to my mud crusted hunting boots. He hangs his coat next to my father's hunting jacket in the front hallway. He places his lips on my temple every morning.

I watch him paint. He brushes colors onto those stark white canvases to create breathtaking landscapes. He begins hanging the paintings I’ve said are my favorites around the house. A spring day in my woods. The beaches of District 4. The training center garden we spent a full day in before our second games. I use the animals I kill and the plants I collect to trade for picture frames in town. He smiles each time I bring one home for him. If he wanted to, he could sell his paintings for a profit, but he never does. I understand why. Each picture he makes is a memory. Selling them would be wrong.

He paints a portrait of Prim for me. I’m angry when I see it. So blindingly angry that I hit his chest over and over as he wraps himself around me and tries to apologize. When I’ve cried myself out in his arms, we hang it in her old bedroom. I don’t go in there very often, but when I do, I feel her small child’s eyes follow me. Peeta did a good job. It looks just like her.

One day, I peek into the old office that has become his studio. His eyes glisten as he paints a crude portrait of his father from memory. He has no real pictures of him to use as a reference.

The first night I work up the courage to straddle him and begin taking off my shirt, he grips my hands to stop me.

“Katniss, you don’t have to,” he whispers. He looks sad. His eyebrows are drawn over his eyes like I’ve confused him with someone else. I’m too embarrassed to tell him that I want his hot mouth on mine and I want him to want me back. I’ve never seriously considered being intimate with anyone before. Not Gale when I was younger and not Peeta when we were thrown into our first games together. Back then, by the river where I pulled him from the mud and the weeds, I had looked away when he took his clothes off. Now I wish he would realize I’ve changed my mind. I want to see him. All of him. And I want him to see me too.

But instead, I quickly pull my shirt back over my bare chest and roll to my side of the bed. He doesn’t touch me again that night and I don’t want him to. My breath quickens and my face burns with embarrassment. I thought he would want me.

I don’t sleep. I have too many thoughts racing through my head. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the boy with the bread doesn’t love me anymore. He has his reasons. Because of me, he can’t go a day without a venom-induced flashback. Because of me, his family is dead. Burned to a crisp in those firebombs that took his home. He has his reasons but at this moment I hate him for it. I rise and dress to go out to the woods. I can tell by the elevated cadence of Peeta’s breathing that he isn’t asleep either. He probably never was. We don’t look at each other as I finish dressing and leave.

Out in the woods, my head isn’t any clearer. I’m too angry to hunt or check traps so I just fume in a tree. I twirl the stem of a stray leaf between my palms and think about Peeta’s eyelashes. The sun is starting to set when I decide I should head home.

Haymitch and Peeta sit at the kitchen table. They aren’t talking but when we’re all together we never really do. What is there to say? Instead we usually just sit and enjoy each other’s company. They are all that’s left of my family here in 12. Today, Haymitch has decided to come at least partially sober, but even when tipsy he’s observant.

“I thought you two were starting to get along again.” He raises an eyebrow at our cold greeting. “Moving in together and all.” He munches on a cookie Peeta has made. The beautiful yellow flower collapses under Haymitch’s jaw as he bites into its petals. Soon Haymitch has eaten all the cookies and has downed more than half of whatever spirit is in his bottle. He begins to stagger back home and I slam the front door on him more forcefully than I mean to.

“Katniss?” Peeta’s voice carries from the kitchen. “Can we talk?”

I don’t respond and elect to silently head up the stairs to take a bath instead. I’m acting childish but I don’t care. I’m hurt.

That night, Peeta slides into bed next to me. I expect him to stay on his side to avoid touching. Instead, I feel him prop himself up on one of his arms as he begins playing with my braid. I yank it out of his grasp.

I want to stop this. To stop being angry but it’s so hard. I’ve come to realize I love him more than I thought I could. So deeply and so intimately that I want him inside of me. I think bitterly that our roles have switched. He loved me when I barely knew who he was. Now I know that he, soft and sweet like the bright dandelion I associate him with, is the one I love. But now he won’t even touch me. At least not the way I hunger for him to.

“It’s not that I don’t want to be with you,” he starts. His voice is low, barely a whisper. The roughness of it sends an impulse through my body that pools between my legs. God, even after last night I still want him just as badly. “But I'm afraid that if we are together, you’ll wake up and regret it. And I can’t bear to lose you.”

I am fully unprepared for this. Somehow, this simple confession from Peeta hurts me more than if he didn’t want to be with me. He thinks I would regret being with him. That I’ll regret making love to him. A guilty twist runs through my body as I realize I’m not always the nicest person. It comes naturally to Peeta, to be loving. I have to put in an effort. I’m protective, but I’m not as affectionate as he is. Somehow he doesn’t know how much I’ve come to care for him. I thought after the games and the war he may have had an inkling of an idea of how deep my feelings are. I let him kiss me and take care of me and sleep in my bed. I try my best to do the same by him. But somehow I think he still believes he’s just a placeholder for somebody else. But there is nobody else, and there hasn’t been for a long time.

I shift so that I’m facing him. He’s still propped up on his arm, cradling his head in his large hand. I look into those blue eyes. The same ones I saw in the cave, on the beach, and in the bunker. The man those eyes belong to has changed, but they themselves have not. They’re just as blue and as beautiful as the day he threw me the burnt bread.

I breathe his name. Our lips are almost touching.

“You’re all I have left,” I whisper back to him. “I could never regret you.”

I don’t have to say anything else. This time he lets me straddle him, undo my braid, and take my shirt off. I guide his hands over my peaked breasts. It’s a good feeling, to have these painter’s hands on me. He’s gentle and warm. The calluses that have formed on his fingers from holding brushes and metal cookie cutters glide over me and make me tremble with pleasure. He rises so I’m sitting in his lap and begins taking his own shirt off. He lets me help and I run my fingers down his solid chest. He’s beautiful. Warm and muscular and defined. Our lips meet as he whispers my name. I truly am the girl on fire when Peeta’s inside of me. I feel his hardness slide between my legs and know that maybe this was always meant to be. Every thrust and every grunt sends me spiraling all over again.

We’re slick with sweat and both breathing heavy when he finishes onto my stomach. I guide one of his warm hands down between my legs and help him rub tight circles into me until I too tense and gasp. It feels like I’ve reached the ocean in his painting. It’s waves lap over me again and again and again until I’m exhausted and gasping for air.

When it’s over we hold each other and try to match our breathing. We’re both burning like furnaces and I’m reminded of kissing his hot lips when he was sick with fever. I’m afraid to let him go. The night air outside of the circle of his arms is cold and I want to stay in this moment a little longer.

Suddenly he’s laughing in my ear. It’s one of those clear childlike laughs that I haven’t heard come from him in a long time.

“What?” I lift my head from under his chin to look him in the eyes. I see small tears running down his face. “Was it that good?” I tease gently as I brush them away.

“I just...I never really thought…” he’s crying more than he’s laughing now. Almost hysterically. I hold him tighter, expecting him to sink into a flashback and start tensing up.

Instead, he asks: “You love me. Real or not real?”

I say: “Real.” And after all this time, I mean it.


End file.
